1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to enterprise planning models, and more particularly, to controlling the optimization of a retail demand model through the application of one or more strategic constraints.
2. Description of Related Art
As technology continues to penetrate into all aspects of the economy, a wealth of data describing each of the millions of interactions that occur every minute is being collected and stored in on-line transaction processing (OLTP) databases, data warehouses, and other data repositories. This information, combined with quantitative research into the behavior of the value chain, allows analysts to develop enterprise models, which can predict how important quantities such as cost, sales, and gross margin will change when certain decisions, corresponding to inputs of the model, are made. These models go beyond simple rules-based approaches, such as those embodied in expert systems, and have the capability of generating a whole range of decisions that would not otherwise be obvious to a designer of rules.
There is however a problem with the use of model-based decision-making tools. As the decision-making process is automated, the operational decisions that are recommended by the model may begin to deviate from broader considerations that are not specifically built into the enterprise planning model. The reason for this is that an economic model can realistically only succeed on either a small scale or large scale, but not both. Incorporating both small scale decisions and large scale decisions in a single enterprise planning model would result in a model of enormous complexity, making the optimization of the enterprise planning model computationally impractical, and economically inefficient.
The importance of this problem can be illustrated with an example from the retail industry. A retailer can use a demand model to accurately forecast each item's unit sales given the item's price and other factors. However, if the demand model is used directly to optimize pricing decisions, it will generate prices that vary greatly from those of a human pricing manager. This is because a demand model has no knowledge of the enterprise's strategic objectives, and therefore generates prices that do not reflect the company's overall pricing policy. This inability to align and optimize an enterprise's operational decisions with its strategic objectives is a huge problem, and results in a billion-dollar inefficiency in the retailing industry alone.
Thus, it would be desirable to exploit the power of enterprise planning models that work well on a small scale, while providing control on a larger scale.